“Why Were We Untouchables?” An Indian author’s quest to understand her country’s entrenched and debilitating caste system—and her family’s place in it.

[Sujatha] Gidla tells numerous stories of the ways in which her parents were discriminated against, isolated, and humiliated, even though they managed to become college teachers and lead more of a middle-class existence. One of her uncles became a guerilla fighter and activist. This all led to Gidla’s own activism, which landed her in jail for a short time. But after studying physics in school, she came to America at age 26 in 1990. She worked in tech and eventually found her way to the New York subway system, where she is now a conductor—the first Indian woman to hold the job.